Excuse me on this review, but I’ve had a few cocktails, as I customarily do when I watch Mad Men. Don’t know why, but it seems that show goes so well with a nice martini, or a mixed drink of some sort. Perhaps it’s the silver rimmed cocktail glasses of the late fifties/early sixties that are the central theme of their DVD covers and in several shots of season 4.

No, wait, I’ve always enjoyed cocktails with Mad Men!

Season 4 really out did itself in my opinion. I love that it shows the transitioning from the fifties to the sixties and the changes in thought processes and movements in the general paradigms.  It is doing a great job of showing the slow progression toward women’s lib as well, which I can really appreciate as a woman myself who is still conflicted over women’s lib and men opening doors for me and treating me like a lady (you know, the whole knight in white and women’s lib thing totally conflicts with eachother right?)

I guess that I like the show’s central character, Don Draper, and how he is always searching, always restless, never content. I think that we can all identify with that, at least a part of that, even if our lives are pretty great most of the time.

Even though Don is definitely flaky in his own way, we all identify with that part of him that finds peace in sudden whims and seems to float from woman to woman if only to find that no one woman can satisfy his every thought, his every facet of morality, and his every moment of character and insights.

And yet we feel for him. We feel for him, but we also feel for the many lives which he carelessly interrupts and blindly uses.  He’s almost sociopathic, but he is so multi faceted that we forgive him for being that way, because we think that he still cares about the destruction he’s reigned on other’s lives in search of his own fulfillment and ultimate happiness by his moments of insight and thoughtful flinches when he knows he’s screwed up.

The characters on this show have gotten deeper and deeper as well. I love Peggy, absolutely love her. Love Joan as well. This show has some strong female characters who are torn between their femininity and making it in a man’s world, which the time period in which they portray, it still very much IS.

Season 4 of Mad Men is absolutely wonderful. You can’t stop watching it.

We are about in the middle of, maybe a little past the middle of, Jersey Shore Season II.  This is the season where the gang of guidettes and guidos goes ot Miami Beach in a nice little apartment with modest beds and access to the beaches, babes, and juiceheads of Miami Beach. Lots of Latinos and Cubans, to boot for the guys and girls of the Shore.

The same cast is all back for season II, including Ronnie and Sammi, who had “broken up” over the break when Ronnie was shown footage of Sammi talking to a cop and giving him her number at the totally awkward reunion show.  Sammi actually walked off stage after breaking out in tears at the mere anticipation of what the host might be showing Ron footage of!

Oh, the drama. And season II brings plenty more drama with the infantile gang as they go through the ins and outs of dating multiple people, hanging out and attending a menial job at a gelato shop (please, I think they all earn way more at appearances now, that’s kind of insulting), drinking and having sex.  The only thing that’s missing is drugs. But there’s plenty of alcohol, and plenty of womanizing and man-izing (on Angelina’s part mostly) in this season.

Angelina shows up a lot more in this season, and I gotta hand it to the girl, she’s entertaining. She was mostly a bore in the first season, and actually ended up leaving after a few episodes because she just wasn’t feeling it. She probably came home and realized what a huge mistake it was since the show was such a hit.

At any rate, she’s back in season II, and she’s just as outspoken, although she’s a little shy around the girls still which is surprising.  The girls are a littel more receptive with her this time though, and ultimately she ends up sort of befriending Sammi, who obviously uses her because she’s mad at Nichole (Snookie) and Jenny (JWOWW) for writing a note about Ronnie cheating on her (when they were broken up), and not owning up to it.

WHEW that was  mouthful. Let’s see what else. Oh yeah, Jenny and Sammi get into a fight – literally a physical fight.  Snookie is noticeably more low key this season, as is Mike The Situation (maybe he’s actually growing up), who ends up looking like the level headed one in the house pretty often so far this season.

This season has been very entertaining. Not a letdown at all. The gang still has the charm and the entertainment value that they had the season before. They may need to bring in new blood next season thought (I haven’t seen season 3 yet), so that there is still that element of getting to know you that makes these reality shows more interesting to watch.

As I’ve stated before in previous posts, my husband is a WWE wrestling fan. Not something that I parade out in front of a lot of people, because quite frankly I don’t want them to form preconceived, incorrect notions about my husband’s intelligence. 

 The fact is, a lot of people grew up watching what was once called the WWF. They worshipped heros like Hulk Hogan, the recently deceased Macho Man Randy Savage, and Bret the Hit Man Hart (on whom there is also a decent documentary out there). 

I’ll admit, since knowing my husband, he has gotten me more into the behind the scenes stuff of this strange industry where men fight in predetermined matches with a lot of hoopla, a lot of ceremony, and crazy outfits, along with big personalities.

The behind the scenes stuff, to me, is far more interesting and watchable than the actual sport itself, although I do occasionally enjoy watching some of the pageantry and effects of a show. 

The documentary “Beyond the Mat” takes a look at just that. It shows popular wrestler’s lives outside of the ring, and exposes what has happened to some of the biggest stars in an industry that attracts drug use and excesses because of the incredibly demanding schedules that the professionals have to adhere to and the amount of damage that they do to their bodies over the years. 

Mostly in the spotlight was the lives of three particular wrestlers (this is an older documentary, it was filmed in the 90′s). Terry Funk was a large part, Jake the Snake Roberts, and my personal favorite Mick Foley aka Mankind.  You really get a glimpse into how abused their poor bodies are, and how addictive the crowds can be to even the men who should really be out of the business due to age and amount of injuries. 

I can see that Darren Aronofsky must have gotten a lot of his inspiration for his hit movie “The Wrestler” from the story of Jake the Snake Roberts, who believe it or not, is still alive today.  In the documentary Beyond the Mat, he seemed on the verge of suicide.

He was estranged from his family, hooked on crack cocaine, and broke, travelling from show to show, seeming to be a totally lost soul. To hear his life story, it’s amazing that he achieved the popularity he did. But his fall was even harder, and you really felt truly sorry for this guy who couldn’t even seem to express his love for his own daughter after an abusive life with his own father.

Beyond the Mat is a great documentary. It’s a little depressing, but it really does give you a glimpse into the behind the scenes lives of these pro wrestlers and what a hard life it is for them.

We are viewers of the show Celebrity Apprentice.  Notice I said viewers, not “fans”.  I don’t consider myself a fan. In fact, I find the ridiculously long episodes a chore to sit through many times and wish there was something better on!  However, there are some interesting moments in the show that I like to watch between daydreaming and doing stomach crunches (I get really antsy during these).

This season had a lukewarm cast, which I think made it a little less interesting. My favorite competitor was John Rich, of the huge country act Big and Rich.  This guy is ultra likeable, not matter which way you dice it. He was really passionate about raising money for his charity, St. Judes Childrens Hospital, which is based in the south, and which he seemed very familiar with.

Star Jones and Ne Ne Leaks added the needed disruption and friction to the show with their now well known dislike for eachother. I don’t even know when that sailboat turned, but suddenly they didn’t like eachother at some point during the season, even though they started off sort of being pals on the show.

Poor Lisa Rinna seemed like she was just too nice for the cast of domineering women, and she was one of the first people voted off the show, although I was glad because frankly looking at her freakish lips got a little old. I like her personality, but those lips are just troubling to look at!  Otherwise, she’s a beautiful woman.

All the “nice girls” got voted out pretty early, thanks to a few women on the show who were control freaks. Star Jones, Dion Warwick and Ne Ne seemed to dominate the girls and the quiet ones just seemed to be shrinking violets in comparison.  I supposed it’s a dog eat dog world, and if you can’t hang with the bossy, domineering types, you probably aren’t going to make it far.

Meatloaf and Gary Busey had their notorious blow up on the show, with Meatloaf exploding in a temper tantrum/rage on Gary for hiding or stealing his paints (Gary didn’t do anything it turns out), but “Meat” was a pretty talented guy in other respects on the show.

The contestants had quite the list of challenging tasks.  Many of them were based on fundraising, which is one of the reasons the show is not as compelling to me. It’s all about who you know, not what you know or how strong a leader you can be, but rather how many rich people you know at that point.

I’m glad that John Rich won. I think Marlee Matlin was a good competitor, but she just didn’t have the strong organizational skills and passion that John Rich did, so I was glad to see his overall performance history win out.

We just went and saw X-Men First Class, and we didn’t have really high expectations for this movie because the trailers, quite frankly, don’t do this well made movie justice.  When we saw the trailers for the movie, we initially were not going to go to the theater to see the movie, although my husband and I both are X-Men movie franchise fans.

We figured we would wait for it to come out on Blu Ray. However, we saw that it was getting rave reviews, and then a friend of ours who is also a movie enthusiast told us he saw it and it was definitely the best X-Men movie he’s seen to date. So that sealed the deal for us. We were out of town when it hit theaters, but when we got back into town, we hit up the matinee and saw it.

This movie was pretty terrific, I gotta say. I think it was my favorite X-Men movie, aside from X-Men II, which I also thought was really entertaining. This one didn’t have as much action, but the character development and acting was awesome.  Mystique was a nice surprise, with Jennifer Lawrence playing the younger version of the blue shape shifter, and Rebecca Romjin even making a cameo in it as the older version.

Magneto was excellent. He was played by an actor named Michael Fassbender, who was also in the Tarantino movie Inglourious Basterds in a memorable role.  He was mesmerizing in the earlier scenes of the movie, building a sympathetic, complicated and angry character and making his “evil” Magneto seem very multi dimensional.

He was much more interesting than the older version as played by Sir Ian Mckellan in the sequels.  James McEvoy was also excellent as a younger Professor Xavier, who is a bit more of a ladies man than I thought (or at least that’s how this direcor interpreted his character).

Some of the characters who fell a little flat for me were the flying girl and Emma Frost. My husband explained to me that is how Emma is supposed to act, cold and calculated, but I guess that January Jones character acting just didn’t do it for me. I kept seeing Betty Draper with every line she murmured, but maybe that’s just because I’m a huge Mad Men fan.

The Beast was great as well, and I didn’t recognize the actor, but he was a pleasant surprise. The story line is also very original, with the X-Men joining forces to defeat the villain in this movie, played awesomely by Kevin Bacon, who seemed to enjoy playing a super powered villain immensely.

He can absorb the energy of anything, including nuclear bombs, and then “throw them back” at you.  He ages slowly, similarly to Mystique.  His henchmen are also intriguing, a devil-like guy who can teleport and has wicked mean knife skills, and a guy who can control the weather, but mostly just throws mini tornadoes at people (kinda lame, but these characters both pulled it off).

Overall, X-Men First Class was an immensely enjoyable movie. I’d recommend it to everyone, even non comic fans!  Great job Matthew Vaughn!

I had not heard of the web show (it’s not on the web, it’s on Comedy Central) Tosh.o, I’ll he honest. I may have heard about it in passing and forgotten about it, but it wasn’t until Easter weekend that I actually was exposed to the irreverent, roll on the floor hilarious show.

It’s hosted by comedian Daniel Tosh, who may be one of the most uninhibited comedians I’ve ever seen on TV.  This guy will say and do anything, and he’s ALWAYS funny when he does it. Just the expressions on his face sometimes will cause you to explode in laughter.

Here is the premise of the show Tosh.o.  It’s a show where they review web clips from Youtube videos over the past several years.  They cover pretty much every well known viral video you’ve ever heard of, and many more gems that you haven’t.  They make fun of everyone. They are irreverent, and often times could upset people who are too PC or easily offended.

But let’s face it, you’re not funny if you don’t cross the line like that.  The show runs clips, then has different things they do with them. One is where he has twenty seconds to say things about the clip that are over the top.  Another is where he picks apart the video, showing the various parts in slow motion, and often pointing out other absurd things that are in the background that you may not have noticed.

Then there’s the end of the show, where they have a “Web Redemption”. They pick someone from one of the videos, and they bring them back to re-enact their screw up. Daniel Tosh is always in the mix, many times dressed in a ridiculous outfit.  One example is when he dresses as a flamboyant play director in all black and a huge beret and french accent.

This guy is so funny too, because he’s not homophobic at all, and he is often ambiguous about his sexuality (although my husband thought he was gay, I think he’s straight, just extremely secure in his manhood, and doesn’t give a s about what people think, which makes him ten times funnier in some of the skits and lines).

This is one of the few shows, besides Sunny in Philadelphia and Curb Your Enhusiasm, that has made me laugh so hard I thought I was going to puke.  I’d highly recommend it if you love comedy.  Only thing is, you can’t find the show on DVD, only on demand, and I’m dying to buy this for my sister who doesn’t have cable!